Personal Responsibility

Hello everyone, this week I thought I would talk about personal responsibility. I have noticed this subject coming up for me a lot lately in my daily life. 

I have found my research on this topic to be somewhat illuminating and insightful, and I felt it might serve some of you as well as it has been helping me.

I suspect the best place to start this week’s topic is to answer the question of what is, personal responsibility for those of you who do not have a clear understanding of its meaning.

What Does Personal Responsibility Mean?

 The definition of, Responsibility is the state of being held to the cause of making something right. 

The word Personal means relating to or belonging to a single person.

Now, if you take these two definitions and put them together, it would lead you to a complete explanation of Personal Responailitiy to mean a cause relating to or belonging to one person that holds them to something that needs to be set right.

However, I read an article that I feel explains it much better. In this article, it states that Personal Responsibility is, in fact, the willingness to both accept the importance of standards that society establishes for individual behavior and to make personal efforts to live by those standards, but personal responsibility also means that when individuals fail to meet expected standards, they do not look around for some factor outside themselves to blame. The demising of personal responsibility occurs when individuals blame their family, their peers, their economic circumstances, or their society for their own failure to meet standards.  To read more on this article 

Now, let’s look at some examples of what personal responsibility would look like.

What Are Exaplmes Of Personal Resposibility?

Understanding ways to take responsibility for our own lives is essential, and in assuming that commitment, you also strengthen your power. Some perfect examples of Personal Responsibility are but are not limited to,

• Agency – the capacity to control your own life.
• Self-control – to have the ability to control your own emotions, desires, and thoughts.
• Honesty – the ability to be completely honest with yourself and others.
• Accountability – To take the blame when you have done something wrong
• Civility – the ability to resolve differences peacefully
• Diligence –  The ability to apply attention and care to your actions.
• Introspection – is the ability to apply attention to your thoughts, emotions, motivation, and actions.

How Do You Apply Personal Responsibility To Your Life?

Now that we have a better understanding of personal responsibility, let’s go into how we can apply the examples above to our daily lives.

I can tell you that on my journey, I have had to go through specific experiences that taught me lessons that would help me see why I should and then how to build each of the above examples into my daily life and overall character.

It honestly comes down to what kind of person you want to be? Do you want to spend your life blaming everyone else in this world for your mistakes and failures, always believing yourself to be the victim of your situation? Or would you rather be the person who takes responsibility for their own lives and the outcomes that you have, always learning, growing from, and overcoming your mistakes and failure?

Choosing the latter choice is the first step to applying personal responsibility to your daily life, from here; it is just becoming aware of yourself and then becoming completely honest with yourself about your every thought, feeling, and action, and then always seeking to do the right thing, or at least that is how I have done and still do apply personal responsibility to my life. 

The more aware you become of yourself, and the more honest you are with yourself, the more you will want to do the right thing naturally. 

The journey to personal responsibility is also a journey to personal power. The more we take responsibility for ourselves and our lives, the more control we hold over our lives and their outcomes.

As I come to a close for this week, I would love to read any thoughts you would like to share on this topic, so please leave them in the comment section below.

I would also like to wish all of you a blessed week, and with that, until next time, Namaste.